SpaceX launches rocket from historic NASA launchpad

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully blasted off from Kennedy Space Center's historic pad 39A on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. The first stage returned for a successful landing in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday.(Photo: NASA photo)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Following in trails blazed by Saturn V moon rockets and space shuttles, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Sunday morning from a storied Kennedy Space Center launch site on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.

The 210-foot rocket carrying a Dragon cargo craft quickly disappeared into clouds after the 9:39 a.m. liftoff from KSC’s pad 39A, where Apollo astronauts launched to the moon and shuttle astronauts last set sail nearly six years ago.

Minutes later, the rocket’s first stage did something the historic missions never contemplated, flipping around above the atmosphere and flying back to Cape Canaveral for a soft landing that unleashed powerful sonic booms across the area.

The first launch from pad 39A since the shuttle Atlantis lifted off in July 2011 was a psychological boost for the space center eager to show it had evolved into more than just a NASA spaceport.
Craig Bailey, Florida Today via USA TODAY NETWORK

Minutes later, the rocketÕs first stage did something the historic missions never contemplated, flipping around above the atmosphere and flying back to Cape Canaveral for a soft landing that unleashed powerful sonic booms across the area.
Craig Bailey, Florida Today via USA TODAY NETWORK

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The landing eight minutes after liftoff was SpaceX’s third of a booster at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, miles down the coast from the launch site. It was the first attempt in daylight, but clouds obscured the views for many spectators.

SpaceX is attempting experimental booster touchdowns at sea and on land with the hope of making rockets reusable and could re-fly a used stage for the first time as soon as next month. A total of eight boosters have now been recovered.

Two minutes after the landing, cameras showed the unmanned Dragon capsule carrying nearly 5,500 pounds of cargo float away from the rocket’s upper stage in what SpaceX said was a perfect orbit.

The Dragon's arrival at the ISS is planned around 9 a.m. Wednesday, where European astronaut Thomas Pesquet will use a 58-foot robotic arm to snare the spacecraft and reel it into a docking port.

The launch was SpaceX’s second this year, following one from California in January that marked the Falcon 9’s return to flight after a rocket exploded on a Cape launchpad during a test last Sept. 1.

The accident badly damaged Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but SpaceX was nearing the completion of renovations to pad 39A at KSC, which was built in the mid-1960s to support the Apollo program and later modified for shuttles.

On Sunday, the mission’s second attempt after a rocket problem scrubbed the first try Saturday, crowds at KSC cheered the Falcon 9’s thundering ascent and landing.

The first launch from pad 39A since the shuttle Atlantis lifted off in July 2011 was a psychological boost for the space center eager to show it had evolved into more than just a NASA spaceport. The space agency is preparing its own Space Launch System rocket, more powerful than a Saturn V, to launch from pad 39B to the north, possibly in late 2018.

SpaceX next year plans to begin launching astronauts from pad 39A on missions to the space station, which Boeing will also fly from neighboring Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

A Falcon 9 could fly again from KSC within two weeks, launching a commercial communications satellite.